Battleground Tracking Poll: President Obama retakes lead

MARION, Ohio — With eight days to go until the election, President Barack Obama has recaptured a narrow national lead over Mitt Romney, riding increased support from women and an edge in early voting.

A new POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Tracking Poll of 1,000 likely voters — taken from last Monday through Thursday — shows Obama ahead of Romney by 1 percentage point, 49 percent to 48 percent. That represents a 3-point swing in Obama’s direction from a week ago but reflects a race that remains statistically tied.

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Obama leads by 8 points among those who have already voted, 53 percent to 45 percent. These early voters represent 15 percent of the electorate, with many more expected to vote in the next few days — though Hurricane Sandy could change that.

But the GOP nominee maintains a potentially pivotal advantage in intensity among his supporters. Sixty percent of those who support Obama say they are “extremely likely” to vote, compared with 73 percent who back Romney. Among this group, Romney leads Obama by 9 points, 53 percent to 44 percent.

By any measure, the race is neck and neck: 43 percent say they will “definitely” vote Romney, compared with 42 percent who say the same of the president.

On the generic congressional ballot, Republicans lead Democrats, 46 percent to 45 percent, after trailing slightly for much of the fall.

Obama leads among women by 11 points, 54 percent to 43 percent. The gap had narrowed to 6 points a week ago, but much of that survey was conducted before the GOP nominee’s comment at the second debate that he had reviewed “binders full of women” as part of a gender diversity effort as Massachusetts governor. Obama and his allies have also been hitting full swing at Romney as an enemy of women’s rights on abortion and contraception in advertising and speeches.

The president is now closer in standing to where he’s been the past few months, and the swing is due to female support. On every issue and question of character, women now favor Obama over Romney.

“The women have come back, and they look pretty locked in,” said Celinda Lake, the Democratic pollster who helped conduct the bipartisan poll. “The key is to win the women by as much as you’re losing the men by.”

Uhhh, you guys do realize that the shift in this poll merely reflects Obama's front-loaded early vote drive, right?

People who have already voted automatically pass the Likely Voter screen, which skews the poll towards Obama temporarily. And yet Obama still can't reach 50% - an extremely bad sign for the incumbent even after a massive push for early voting.

What is much more informative here is the "Extremely Likely" voters where Romney leads 53% to 44%.

Plus, the election PREDICTION model from this same firm shows Romney winning the election 52% to 47%. That means he would absolutely carry Ohio, Virginia, Florida, Wisconsin, Colorado, New Hampshire, and likely a few more surprise states.

I know Politico does not like to let facts get in the way of good propaganda but in Ohio Republicans are outperforming their share of voter registration in absentee requests and early votes by 8.73 points. Democrats are under performing their share of 2008 early and absentee votes cast by 7.60 percentage points, while the GOP is over-performing their share by 5.94 points. The result is a net swing of +13.54 percentage points for Republicans.

Bottom line based on measurable data the Democrats are well behind their 2008 pace in early voting and Republicans are ahead of 2008. Now take into account that in 2008 Obama beat McCain by exactly 4 points 51.2 % to 47.2 %.

Now feel free to go back to the regular spinning and cheer leading for the Democratic party

Why isn't Politico or the national media ever reporting on the RAND poll. The RAND poll has been used in political campaigns in Europe and has been the most accurate predictor of election outcomes in the UK. The RAND poll is unique among all the polls in that it is a continous poll that registered 3,5000 registered voters and tracked their preferences weekly via email. When they closed their registrationabout 40% of particpants were strong Romney supporters and 40% were strong Obama supporters reflecting the national divide and the race was virually tied on July the 5th.The RAND continous poll reflects the bounces throughut the campaign that has been reported by tracking polls that contact a new group of participants in eacjh of their polling cycles. The RAND poll reflects the swings in voter preferences among 'soft' Romney and 'soft' Obama supporters.They publish their daily poll results every day at 1:00 AM. Today's RAND poll includes all particpants after the 3rd Presidential debate and shows Obama with a lead outside the margin of error, Obama=50.9%, Romney=45.05%

Unlike Rasmussen, ARG, We Ask America,PPP and other daily trackers this poll contacted and conducted live interviews with both land-line and cell phone users. The automated pollsters like Rasmussen are prohibeted by law from contacting cell phones and they automatically disqualify 40% of the electorate from particpating in any of their polls. Even Larry Sabato, about the most impartial analyst around, has given up trying to make sense out this years polling since most are prohibeted from calling cell phone users and even when they contact land-line users, with the advent of Caller-ID, the response rate from land-line users has fallen to less than 3-4% of all contacts.

I always wonder what cell user answers their phone from an unknown number. I am a cell only user and have never been polled via cell. Now, I think that the pollsters should used the web to conduct surveys. I have so many ways to be contacted through the internet. I am an 42 year old Afrcan-American male who lives in Virginia and very ethusiatic about President Obama. I am also bringing my first time voting young person in my household. I predict that Virginia will be close but not because of a lack of enthusiam.

"On this morning’s edition of Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace confronted two Democratic Senators who serve on the Select Intelligence Committee over whether the drones that were reportedly available to aid the besieged U.S. consulate in Benghazi were in fact armed and could have provided valuable assistance. Both senators repeatedly dodged the question, avoiding a direct answer on the situation."

Has anyone else noticed Politico's track to the left? I am very surprised and I am not being sarcastic. I have had to ditch Fox, MSNBC, and now Politico. Soon I can only watch Law and Order. Could we just report the news?

If men would use simple logic, common sense, and their hearts, they would follow women's lead in this election and vote for Obama/Biden and candidates running against Akin and Mourdock. It seems impossible that any man would choose to vote for Romney/Ryan and/or Akin and Mourdock.

These men have a Republican theocratic intent of passing legislation which would force the wives and daughters of our nation to give birth to a rapist's child or the child of incest. Even if the case of a young teen, barely into puberty!. Who could possibly believe that making a decision regarding such a pregnancy should be made by anyone other than the woman, her family, her doctor and her clergy?

Men, please do not vote against the rights of the women in this great nation.

. It seems impossible that any man would choose to vote for Romney/Ryan

Seems impossible top me that human being could be stupid enough to think that another 4 years of Obama will be any better than the past 4 years. Obama is incompetent. He is overmatched and never had the ability to be a succesful POTUS.

Can't you admit you are wrong, when you clearly are, and just move on?